career

I think that after graduation, there is this implicit assumption that your job is going to be the center of your life, and everything else will evolve around that. It might be uncomfortable hearing it said out loud, but that doesn't necessarily make it any less true. I think for a lot of us, our expectations conform to this idea. Weekends are a break from work (unless you're an i-banker). Sunday might be church time. Getting home from work early is a luxury. You carve out time from work to take a vacation. You're happy when you're doing well at work, devastated when you get passed up on a promotion. You measure yourself against others by the type of work you do, and work defines you more than you'd like to admit.

And all of that is fine. I just didn't realize that I naturally assumed that work was going to be that large a part of my life... until it wasn't. In another life, I would be working for some private tech company, getting home at 7pm or later, and happy with the fact that I'm working on some really cool project. Even when I got home, I'd probably be thinking about this project, coming up with new ideas. I'd probably think about promotions, salaries, stock options, and my place in the company. But in the government? Work is completely secondary. Weekdays are a slight disturbance in my week. Oh, it's Monday? Okay lets go to work really quick and after that I can get on with the rest of my life. It's a weird feeling, and one that I didn't really expect. But I sort of like it? Maybe I'm getting old.

Maybe it's okay for work to be the center of your life, if you're passionate about the work you're doing? But maybe it's also okay for work to be completely secondary to what you're really passionate about doing.

imagination

Meant to write this a few weeks back. Mostly thoughts from a sermon I heard a few weeks back... should have taken notes.

What does it mean to "be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12:2)? That one day "young men shall see visions, ... old men shall dream dreams" (Acts 2:17)? Could it be that we are too easily content with the status quo, that "our lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak" (The Weight of Glory)? That as we get older, we naturally tend to be more conservative and less liberal in our thinking (not politically)?

What Jesus preached was nothing short of radical:
1) Whereas before, it was enough not to commit murder or adultery, Jesus asks us to go beyond that and asks us to examine our innermost thoughts and desires.
2) Whereas before, it was enough to keep an oath, Jesus asks us to go beyond that and let our yeses be yeses.
3) Whereas divorce is technically legal, Jesus asks us not to.
4) Whereas an eye for an eye is well and good (I used to think that this was a law of revenge, but it's not! It's actually a law of limited retribution. If someone takes your eye out, it would be inappropriate for you to kill their entire family and burn down their entire village, so it defines appropriate levels of retaliation), Jesus asks us to go beyond that and turn the either cheek.
5) Whereas before, there was a difference between Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female... in Christ, these distinctions no longer matter.

That was 2000 years ago, and most Christians now would agree with those teachings. But why did the church take so long to stand up for racial equality? Why did Martin Luther King Jr. need to write his "I have a Dream" speech? More importantly, how is the church too conservative today (again, not politically)? Are our imaginations too small? Are we loving God with all our hearts, soul, strength, and mind? Are we dreaming big enough?

white people

They marry fast :O

moderation

I used to always get the largest size or portion when buying a drink or ordering food. A small cup of boba? Nope. A half order of salad at CPK? Never. The way I saw it, by choosing the larger serving you got more bang for your buck. It wasn't just limited to food either. After my last Costco run, I ended up with more toilet paper than I'll probably ever need in my lifetime. I'm slowly learning that buying more also means wasting more. Still trying to shake that habit.

On the plus side, I've begun to appreciate leftovers... a lot. Usually means one less meal to prepare :)

flying

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PmBPMWMHdo&hd=1
If I had the time and money, I'd definitely want to learn how to fly. Probably won't ever be able to fly a plane like that though. The F-35 would be awesome. The helmet mounted display lets you look down and view your surroundings as if the plane weren't there (via cameras looking out from the hull of the plane).

It's crazy how far technology has come in some ways, and how little it has progressed in others. The US Military is still flying the EA-6B and A-10, and NASA can't get a man on the moon for at least another decade even if it wanted to. Self-aware (or seemingly self-aware) robots in our lifetimes? Nope, don't think so. And yes, I've seen Watson and Siri in action.

rolling hills hs

rat race

Steve Jobs. Started an iconic company, 313 patents to his name, and an impressive resume besides. Would I trade places with him? No. Why? Because he's dead.

I feel like a lot of us have created artificial benchmarks by which we validate ourselves. Whether we get a graduate degree from some prestigious school. How many papers we publish. How far we're advancing in our careers. But it's all meaningless. And it's so obviously meaningless. It's so obvious, that it's unbelievable how non-obvious it is. Why are you even doing what you do? Do you realize that when you die, none of this will matter?